The Hebrew script for Tikkun Olam - "to repair the world." This was the first stage of the tapestry "Bright Wings" which I completed in January 2021. The finished piece hangs above my reading chair.
Tonight I watched the Russian President walking around Mariupol as if he was attending an official opening of some new project. In reality he was in a city that was destroyed on his orders, where hospitals were bombed on his orders, and where the numbers of those killed, injured, and displaced adds hugely to the sum of human suffering inflicted by Russia under this man.
Sometimes we are given unlooked for clarity on the texts we have found the hardest verses of Scripture to interpret. "The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express." (Romans 8. 26)
I've never liked the phrase, "There are no words", when confronted by tragedy. Of course there are words - angry words, truth-telling words, judgemental words, anguished words. More true to say, "I can't think of the right words." And perhaps that's because we are having a hard time interpreting our emotions, and understanding our own thoughts.
That's when Romans 8.26 comes on like a light bulb. Prayer isn't only about our fluency of words and lucidity of thought. Sometimes we offer the Spirit of God space to pray in our hearts with words beyond our knowing and that are beyond human utterance.
The astonishing truth is that the Spirit of God participates in the suffering of creation. God is present in suffering love amongst those whose world is broken, even in Mariupol. I want to pray judgement, punishment, justice - but somewhere deeper than I can possibly know, the Spirit prays within me with the pathos of God, and in words beyond articulation in any human voice.
Tikkun Olam.
Spirit of God repair our world,
repair our hopes,
repair our communities,
repair our humanity,
repair our hearts,
Tikkun Olam.
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